Carbon High X-Country teams working towards season long goals

While early season success is something the Carbon High Cross Country teams would like, head coach Telisse Allen wants the team focusing on the long term goals.

In three meets this season, Allen said the boys and girls teams have shown improvement by cutting down on times during competition.

"We've got a very young team this season," she explained.

During the team's first region meet at the Highland Invitational on Aug. 24, junior Garrett Marsing was the only member of the cross country team to participate. He took 27th place overall at the event with a time of 16.06 in the three mile run. The meet brought out a number of 5A teams and bigger squads, Allen said.

Allen said because of the team's youth, she wanted them to continue practicing and training to prepare for the long haul of the season.

The following day at the grass relays in American Fork, Allen had the full boys and girls teams competing at the unique event which includes a relay and a one-mile grass loop with hay bails for the runners to leap over.

Marsing finished with the fastest time for region schools during the meet with a time of 10.38. Among other notable finishes, Rachel Goodrich and Diana Olsen took second and third respectively among region runners.

Carbon High traveled to Spanish Fork last Tuesday and got a good look at their region opponents as well as getting accustomed to the place where the region meet will be held in October.

Despite temperatures on the course reaching 97 degrees, the girls team took second place behind Spanish Fork. Allen said the boy's team saw their top five runners finish the meet with times all under 20 minutes for the three mile run.

Allen said the early season meets have given the teams an idea of what they are up against in region competition.

"We've got six weeks until the region meet to get better and focus on improving times," she said.

The team traveled to Juab on Monday for a meet and will travel to Murray on Friday for another meet.